Collette’s Manufacturing by Bob Cudmore

  Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Recorder

Sunday, November 23, 2025

     Jerry Snyder always has felt a connection to the long-gone Collette Manufacturing Company because his mother, Eileen Willitts Snyder, once worked there. Founded on Clizbe Avenue in Amsterdam in 1907, Collette’s over the years made Mendets (to repair pots and pans), paper clips and sporting goods, such as baseballs and footballs.

Snyder wrote, “My mother's first real paying job was working for Collette's in the late 1930s sewing baseballs when they were still doing it by hand. She tells the story of going for an interview and being asked if she knew how to sew them. She said yes even though she had never done one in her life. She got the job.

“Since the workers were on a quota system, two of the more experienced women on the line helped her out by slipping completed baseballs they had done into her bag when the supervisor wasn't around. This let her meet quota and she was able to keep her job long enough to learn the tricks that went with it, like putting the cover leather in water to soak the night before to soften it, thereby allowing it to be stretched a bit to make it more workable. She also learned to thread several sets of needles ahead of time so once she started sewing she wouldn't have to stop to thread them in the middle of a job.

“Sewing the ball required holding it in a special vise, stretching the two sections of the cover over the core, and stitching the seams with two large curved needles, one threaded with red, the other with blue.

“She said the worst part of the job was when you got your finger in the wrong spot and ran one of those big needles into it. Sometimes, when there weren't enough baseballs to sew, some of the workers would be sent up to the other building to lace footballs, which was an easier job since the football covers didn't need to be stretched. They weren't fully inflated until after the lacing was done. My mother said the workers used to call (the factory) Collette's College.”

PATENT PROBLEMS

     Clarence Collette came up with the idea of making the paper clip more secure by notching ridges in the clips, which were called gripper clips.

Dave Gordon, who operated Collette’s before it closed, said he still has the original patent on the gripper clips.

Gordon said, “The problem was that the patent protected the grip but only for a small clip. The patent did not protect against someone making a grip clip of another size.”

Gordon said Clarence and Edna Collette had two daughters, Edna and Shirley. They owned a house on Locust Avenue and later built a house on Golf Course Road.

Noryne Dybas, whose mother worked as a maid for the Collettes, said her mother was especially close to daughter Edna.

“Someone in the family was getting a new mink coat and they gave mother the one they were replacing, ‘ Dybas wrote. They also gave her an oak pedestal table and a tapestry when she got married.

Dybas said her mother told a story about eating a difficult fruit, “Edna asked her if she would like an avocado pear. My mother never having had one, said she would love one, not wanting to admit she had no idea what it was. She picked it up and took a bite like you would a regular pear. Obviously, it was awful. She and Edna had a good laugh and then she told her how to properly eat and prepare an avocado. Avocados soon became a favorite of my mother and me.

You can contact Bob Cudmore at 518-346-6657 or at bobcudmore@yahoo,com